Dangerous Ground Part 49

"Mrs. Warburton says, sir, that she can not leave her room this morning, but hopes to be able to do so this afternoon."

"Very well, Millie;"--the frown returning to his face--"you may go." And he muttered: "I suppose that means that she will condescend to receive me this afternoon. Well, I must bide my time."

He returned to the window, and standing near it, looked curiously at the envelope in his hand. It was addressed in bold, scrawling characters that were, spite of their boldness, almost illegible. Slowly he opened it, and slowly removed the sheet it enclosed.

"What a wretched scrawl!" he muttered. And then, with a glance at the printed letter-head, "Office of the Chief of Police:" "That's legible, at all events. It's from--from--hum, strange that a man can't write his own name--B--B--C--of course, it's from the Chief of Police."

Slowly and laboriously, he deciphered the letter.

A. WARBURTON. etc.

Dear Sir:--We have just secured, for your case, a very valuable man, Mr. Augustus Grip, late of Scotland Yards. He is an able and most successful detective; we hope much from him. Have already instructed him to extent of our ability, and he will wait upon you personally this P. M., between, say, three and four o'clock.

You will do well to give Mr. G--full lat.i.tude in the case.

Very respectfully, etc.

This much Alan slowly deciphered, and this gave the key to the unreadable signature. It was from the Chief of Police, evidently.

Alan reperused the letter, and slowly returned it to its envelope.

"This comes at the right moment," he soliloquized. "If this Grip is what he is said to be, he may save me in more ways than one."

And once more he summoned a servant, and gave these instructions:

"See that this room is thoroughly aired and set in order before three o'clock;" adding, as the servant was turning away: "Show a person who will call here after that hour, into this room, and then bring me his name."

In the arrival of such a message, at that precise moment, there was, to Alan Warburton, no occasion for surprise. From the first he had communicated with the officers of the law by letter, or by quiet interviews held in his own apartments.

He was fully alive to the fact that, in dealing with the police, he was himself in momentary danger. But having resolved, from the beginning, to make his own safety and welfare secondary to that of little Daisy, he had been strengthened and confirmed in this resolve by his recent interview with Leslie. And now, in his dogged determination to find the Francoises, he vowed to sacrifice, if need be, his entire fortune, and accept any attendant danger, in prosecuting a vigorous search for these old wretches, and the missing child.

His brother's illness and death had furnished him with a sufficient reason for living secluded, and for receiving such business callers as he chose to admit, in his own apartments. Only this morning he had dispatched a missive to police headquarters, desiring the Chief to secure the services of the best detectives at any cost, and to send to him for instructions or consultation, representing himself as confined to the house by slight indisposition.

He hated a falsehood, but, as he penned this fabrication, he had thrown the moral responsibility of the act upon the already heavily burdened shoulders of his sister-in-law.

And now, as he went slowly from the study, he looked forward anxiously, but not apprehensively, to the two coming interviews: the first, with Leslie; the second, with Mr. Grip, of Scotland Yards.

CHAPTER x.x.xVII.

A VERY PATHETIC MUTE.

In spite of the fact that the Warburton servants were a thoroughly disciplined corps, and that domestic affairs, above stairs and below, usually moved with mechanical regularity, it was nearly two o'clock before Millie, armed with dusters and brushes, entered Alan's study to do battle with a small quant.i.ty of slowly-acc.u.mulated dust.

"Ah!" she exclaimed as she flung open the windows, "how gloomy the house is! I s'pose Mr. Alan will set himself up as master now, and then, Millie, you'll get _your_ walking papers. Well, who cares; I don't like him, anyhow." And she made a vigorous dash at the fireless grate.

Millie Davis was the joint protege of Leslie and Winnie, a rustic with a pretty face, and scant knowledge of the world and its ways.

Up and down the study flitted Millie, dusting, arranging, and pausing very often to admire some costly fabric, or bit of vivid color.

Almost the last article to come under her brush was Alan's cabinet-a.r.s.enal, and her feminine curiosity prompted her to peep in at the door, which Alan had left ajar; and then Millie gasped and stood aghast.

"Guns and pistols, and all manner of cuttin' and shootin' things," she soliloquized, as she drew back and prepared to close the door of the cabinet. "Well, it takes a good while to find _some folks_ out!" And then, as a tuneful sound smote her ears, she turned swiftly from the open cabinet to the window.

A hand organ grinding out the "Sweet By-and-by", is a thing most of us fail to appreciate. But Millie both appreciated and understood. It was music, familiar music, and sweet; at least so thought Millie, and she hurried to the window nearest the cabinet, and looked out.

"My," she said, half aloud, "but that sounds cheerful!"

She leaned over the window-ledge and looked up and down the quiet side street. Ah, there he was; quite near the window, resting his organ against the iron railings, and playing, with his eyes turned toward her.

Such beseeching eyes; such a good-looking, picturesque, sad-faced organ-grinder!

Catching sight of Millie, he lifted his organ quickly, and without a break in the "Sweet By-and-by", came directly under the window, gazing up at her with a look that was a wondrous mixture of admiration and pathos. Poor fellow; how sorrowful, how distressed, and how respectful, was his look and att.i.tude!

"What a mournful-looking chap it is!" murmured Millie, drawing back a little when the tune came to an end.

As the organ struck up a more cheerful strain, a new thought seized her, and she leaned out again over the sill.

"Look here, my man," she began, in a tone of gentle remonstrance, "you shouldn't play, come to think of it, quite so near the house. It won't do; stop, stop." And, as the man stared, hesitated, and then ground away more vigorously than before, she indulged in a series of frantic gestures, seeing which the organ-grinder paused and stared wonderingly.

Then, with a sudden gleam of comprehension, he smiled up at her, touched a stop in his organ, and complacently began a different tune.

"_No! no! no!_" cried Millie; "not _that_; stop!" And she shook her head so violently that the little blue bow atop of her brown locks, flew off and fell at the feet of the minstrel, who, in obedience to the movement of her head and hand, stopped his instrument once more, stooped down, and picking up the blue bow, began to clamber up the iron railings, with his organ still strapped to his side, evidently intent upon restoring the bow in the most gallant manner.

"My! you shouldn't climb onto the railings like that," remonstrated Millie, as she put out her hand to receive the bit of ribbon.

But the minstrel, bracing one knee against the brick and mortar, thus steadying himself and giving his hands full play, began a series of pantomines so strange that Millie involuntarily exclaimed:

"Why, what in the world ails the man!" And then, struck once more by the pitiful appeal in his eyes, she cried: "Look here, are you sick?"

Only renewed pantomines from the minstrel.

"Are you hungry?" Then, in a tone of discouragement: "What is he at, anyhow?"

But as the man's hand went from his lips to his ear, even Millie's dull comprehension was awakened.

"Gracious goodness!" she exclaimed, "he's deaf and dumb."

Faster still flew the fingers of the minstrel, sadder and more pitiful grew his face, and Millie watched his movements with renewed interest.

"He's talking with his fingers," muttered Millie. "I wonder--"

She stopped suddenly; he was doing something new in the way of pantomine, and Millie guessed its meaning.

"A baby!" she gasped; "it's something about a baby. One, two, three, ah!

five fingers; five babies, five years--oh, say, say, man; _say_ man!"--and Millie's face was white with agitation, and she barely saved herself from tumbling out of the window, in the intensity and eagerness of her excitement--"you don't mean--you don't know anything about our Daisy--you don't--"

But Millie's breath failed her, for even as she spoke, the sad-eyed organ-grinder took from his pocket a dirty bit of paper, unfolded it, and displayed to the eager girl a tiny tress of yellow hair--just such a tress as might have grown on little Daisy's head.